Why It’s So Hard for Members of the Military to Speak Out

How, I’ve often wondered, can people who have spent their lives working
in an institution, particularly in the military or some other part of the national
security state, retire and suddenly see that same institution in a different
and far more negative light? Once outside, they become, in essence, critics
of their former selves. I’ve long had a private term for this curious
phenomenon: retirement syndrome.

Perhaps the most striking example of (edge-of-)retirement syndrome in modern
American history was former five-star general Dwight D. Eisenhower. As
president, he presided over a vast expansion of the national security state
and the military, including its nuclear arsenal, while a growing set of weapons
makers and other defense-related outfits were embedding themselves in Washington
in a big way. On January 17, 1961, just before he was to end his second
term in office and leave public life forever, he gave a “farewell
address” to the nation warning – out of the blue – of a
potential loss of American liberties in part because

“we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast
proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly
engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security
more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction
of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the
American experience… In the councils of government, we must guard against
the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced
power exists and will persist.”

Few could have said it better, then or now. In the process, he gave an
unforgettable name – “the military-industrial complex” –
to a growing danger in American life. The question remained, however:
Why exactly had he waited until his criticisms lacked all the force that power
can offer? He was, after all, president and commander-in-chief.
In this, however, he would hardly prove unique. Take, for example, four-star
general George Lee Butler, who from 1991 to 1994 was the last commander of the
Air Force’s Strategic Air Command and commander in chief of the U.S. Strategic
Command, which, as he later explained,
“controls all Navy and Air Force nuclear weapons.” In 1996
at the National
Press Club in Washington, two years after he retired, he spoke out forcefully
against the very weapons he had so recently overseen, pointing out that, “over
the last 27 years of my military career, I was embroiled in every aspect of
American nuclear policy making and force structuring, from the highest councils
of government to nuclear command centers; from the arms control arena to cramped
bomber cockpits and the confines of ballistic missile silos and submarines.”
He then called for the “elimination” of such weapons. Ever
since then,
he has been a forceful anti-nuclear advocate, terming such weaponry a “scourge”
to the planet and an immoral danger to humanity.

Then there’s William Perry, who spent decades inside the national security
state working on nuclear issues. As undersecretary of defense for research
and engineering under President Jimmy Carter, and secretary of defense under
President Bill Clinton, he, too, oversaw a major nuclear build-up including,
as California Governor Jerry Brown writes in a recent
review of Perry’s new memoir, My
Journey at the Nuclear Brink, helping “launch the B-2, a strategic
nuclear bomber, capable of use in both nuclear and nonnuclear missions; revitalized
the aging B-52 with air-launched cruise missiles; put[ting] the Trident submarine
program back on track; and [making] an ill-fated attempt to bring the MX ICBM,
a ten-warhead missile, into operation.” Like Butler, Perry has now
gone into full-scale anti-nuclear mode, publicly speaking out against the arsenal
he had such a hand in building and the sort of devastation that nuclear terrorism,
a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, or a new Cold War with Russia might
lead to.

In all these years, however, I’ve seen next to nothing written on the
various forms retirement syndrome can take or why, since such sentiments must
have been long brewing in the retirees, we never hear critiques from within
that national security world while such figures are still active. Today,
TomDispatch
regular and retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William Astore remedies
that, exploring what his own professional life tells him about why we hear so
little criticism from those in either our military or the rest of the national
security state. ~ Tom

Military Dissent Is Not an OxymoronFreeing Democracy from Perpetual WarBy William J. Astore

The United States is now engaged in perpetual war with victory nowhere in sight.
Iraq is chaotic and scarred.
So, too, is Libya.
Syria barely exists. After 15 years, “progress” in Afghanistan has
proven eminently reversible
as efforts to rollback recent Taliban gains
continue to falter. The Islamic State may be fracturing, but its various franchises
are finding new and horrifying ways to replicate themselves and lash out. Having
spent trillions of dollars
on war with such sorry results, it’s a wonder that key figures in the
U.S. military or officials in any other part of America’s colossal national
security state and the military-industrial complex (“the
Complex” for short) haven’t spoken out forcefully and critically
about the disasters on their watch.

Yet they have remained remarkably mum when it comes to the obvious. Such
a blanket silence can’t simply be attributed to the war-loving nature
of the U.S. military. Sure, its warriors
and warfighters always define themselves as battle-ready, but the troops
themselves don’t pick the fights. Nor is it simply attributable
to the Complex’s love of power and profit, though its members are hardly
eager to push back against government decisions that feed the bottom line. To
understand the silence of the military in particular in the face of a visible
crisis of war-making, you shouldn’t assume that, from private to general,
its members don’t have complicated, often highly critical feelings about
what’s going on. The real question is: Why they don’t ever express
them publicly?

To understand that silence means grasping all the intertwined personal, emotional,
and institutional reasons why few in the military or the rest of the national
security state ever speak out critically on policies that may disturb them and
with which they may privately disagree. I should know, because like so many
others I learned to silence my doubts during my career in the military.

My Very Own “Star Wars” Moment

As a young Air Force lieutenant at the tail end of the Cold War, I found myself
working on something I loathed: the militarization of space. The Air Force
had scheduled a test of an anti-satellite
(ASAT) missile to be launched at high altitude from an F-15 fighter jet.
The missile was designed to streak into low earth orbit to strike at the satellites
of enemy powers. The Soviets were rumored to have their own ASAT capability
and this was our answer. If the Soviets had a capability, Americans had
to have the same – or better. We called it “deterrence.”

Ever since I was a kid, weaned on old episodes of “Star
Trek,” I’d seen space as “the final frontier,” a
better place than conflict-ridden Earth, a place where anything was possible
– maybe even peace. As far as I was concerned, the last thing we
needed was to militarize that frontier. Yet there I was in 1986 working
in the Space Surveillance Center in Cheyenne
Mountain in support of a test that, if it worked, would have helped turn
space into yet another war zone.

It won’t surprise you to learn that, despite my feelings, which couldn’t
have been stronger, I didn’t speak up against the test. Not a peep.
I kept my critical thoughts and doubts to myself. I told myself that I
was doing my duty, that it wasn’t my place to question decisions made
at high levels in the administration of then-President Ronald Reagan.
You can’t have a disciplined and orderly military if troops challenge
every decision, can you? Orders are to be obeyed, right? Ours not
to reason why, ours but to do or die – especially since we were then at
war with the Soviets, even if that war fell under the label of “cold.”

So I buried my misgivings about facilitating a future shooting war in orbit.
I remember, in fact, hoping that the ASAT test would go well and that I’d
be seen as effective at my job. And in this I think I was probably pretty
typical of military people, then and now.

The F-15 ASAT program was eventually cancelled, but not before it taught me
a lesson that’s obvious only in retrospect: mission priorities and military
imperatives in such a hierarchical situation are powerful factors in suppressing
morality and critical thinking. It’s so much easier, so much more
“natural,” to do one’s job and conform rather than speak out
and buck a system that’s not made for the public expression of dissenting
views. After all, a military with an ethos of “we’re all volunteers, so
suck it up – or get out” is well suited to inhibiting dissent, as its creators
intended.

To those who’ve been exposed to hierarchical, authority-heavy institutions,
that lesson will undoubtedly come as no surprise. Heck, I grew up Catholic
and joined the military, so I know something about the pressures to conform
within such institutions. In the Church, you learn – or at least
you did in my day – that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God, and
the “old guard” priests and nuns I encountered were more than ready
to encourage that fear. In the military, you learn from day one of basic
training that it’s best to put up and shut up. No grumbling
in the ranks. No quibbling. Yes, sir; no, sir; no excuse, sir.
Cooperate and graduate. That conformist mentality is difficult to challenge
or change, no matter your subsequent rank or position.

There’s a sensible reason for all this. You can’t herd cats,
nor can you make a cohesive military unit out of them. In life and death
situations, obedience and discipline are vital to rapid action.

As true as that may be, however, America doesn’t need more obedience:
it needs more dissent. Not only among its citizens but within its military
– maybe there especially.

Unfortunately, in the post-9/11 era, we’ve exalted and essentially worshipped
the military as “our greatest national treasure” (the words
of former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta at the recent Democratic
convention). The military has, in fact, become so crucial to Washington
that aspiring civilian commanders-in-chief like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
lean on retired generals to anoint them as qualified for the job. (For Trump,
Lieutenant
General Michael Flynn did the honors; for Hillary, General
John Allen.)

The Pentagon has, in a very real sense, become America’s national cathedral.
If we’re going to continue to worship at it, we should at least ask for
some minimal level of honesty from its priests. In militarized
America, the question of the moment is how to encourage such honesty.

Call it patriotic dissent. By “dissent” I mean honest talk
from those who should know best about the hazards and horrors of perpetual war,
about how poorly those conflicts have gone and are going. We desperately
need to encourage informed critics and skeptics within the military and the
Complex to speak their minds in a way that moves the national needle away from
incessant bombing and
perpetual war.

Yet to do so, we must first understand the obstacles involved. It’s
obvious, for example, that a government which has launched a war
against whistleblowers, wielding the World War I-era Espionage
Act against them and locking away Chelsea
Manning for a veritable lifetime in a maximum security prison, isn’t
likely to suddenly encourage more critical thinking and public expression inside
the national security state. But much else stands in the way of the rest of
us hearing a little critical speech from the “fourth
branch” of government.

Seven Reasons Why It’s So Hard to Break Ranks

As a start, it’s hard for outsiders to imagine just how difficult it
is to break ranks when you’re in the military. So many pressures
combine to squelch dissent – everything from feelings of loyalty and patriotism
to careerist concerns and worries about punishment. I wasn’t immune
from such pressures, which is why my story is fairly typical. As I’ve
said, I had my criticisms of the military, but I didn’t begin to air them
until
2007, two years after I’d retired.

Why the delay? I can offer explanations but no excuses. Unless
you’ve been in the military, you have little idea how all-enveloping and
all-consuming such a life can be. In a strange way, it may be the closest
thing to true socialism in America: base housing provided and tied to your rank,
government doctors and “socialized” medicine for all, education for your children
in base
schools, and worship at the base chapel; in other words, a remarkably insular
life, intensified when troops are assigned to “Little Americas”
abroad (bases like Ramstein
in Germany). For Star Trek: The Next Generation fans, think of
Ramstein and similar bases around the world as the Borg
cubes of American life – places where you’re automatically assimilated
into the collective. In such a hive life, resistance is all but futile.

This effect is only intensified by the tribalism of war. Unit cohesion,
encouraged at all times, reaches a fever pitch under fire as the mission (and
keeping your buddies and yourself alive) becomes all-consuming. Staring
at the business end of an AK-47 is hardly conducive to reflective, critical
thinking, nor should it be.

Leaving military insularity, unit loyalty, and the pressure of combat aside,
however, here are seven other factors I’ve witnessed, which combine to
inhibit dissent within military circles.

1. Careerism and ambition: The U.S. military no longer has potentially
recalcitrant draftees – it has “volunteers.” Yesteryear’s
draftees were sometimes skeptics; many just wanted to endure their years in
the military and get out. Today’s volunteers are usually believers;
most want to excel. Getting a reputation for critical comments or other
forms of outspokenness generally means not being rewarded with fast promotions
and plum assignments. Career-oriented troops quickly learn that it’s
better to fail upwards quietly than to impale yourself on your sword while expressing
honest opinions. If you don’t believe me, ask all those overly decorated
generals of our failed wars you see on TV.

2. Future careerism and ambition: What to do when you leave the military?
Civilian job options are often quite limited. Many troops realize that they
will be able to double or triple their pay, however, if they go to work for
a defense
contractor, serving as a military consultant or adviser overseas.
Why endanger lucrative prospects (or even your security clearance, which could
be worth tens of thousands of dollars to you and firms looking to hire you)
by earning a reputation for being “difficult”?

3. Lack of diversity: The U.S. military is not blue and red and purple
America writ small; it’s a selective
sampling of the country that has already winnowed out most of the doubters
and rebels. This is, of course, by design. After Vietnam, the high
command was determinednever to have such a wave
of dissent within the ranks again and in this (unlike so much else) they
succeeded. Think about it: between “warriors” and citizen-soldiers,
who is more likely to be tractable and remain silent?

4. A belief that you can effect change by working quietly from within the
system: Call it the Harold
K. Johnson effect. Johnson was an Army general during the Vietnam
War who considered resigning in protest over what he saw as a lost cause.
He decided against it, wagering that he could better effect change while still
wearing four stars, a decision he later came deeply to regret. The truth
is that the system has time-tested ways of neutralizing internal dissent, burying
it, or channeling it and so rendering it harmless.

5. The constant valorization of the military: Ever since 9/11, the
gushing pro-military rhetoric of presidents and other politicians has undoubtedly
served to quiet honest doubts within the military. If the president and
Congress think you’re the best
military ever, a force for human
liberation, America’s greatest national treasure, who are you to disagree,
Private Schmuckatelli?

America used to think differently. Our founders considered a standing
army to be a pernicious threat to democracy. Until World War II, they
generally preferred isolationism to imperialism, though of course many were
eager to take land from Native Americans and Mexicans while double-crossing
Cubans, Filipinos, and other peoples when it came to their independence.
If you doubt that, just read War is a Racket by Smedley
Butler, a Marine general in the early decades of the last century and two-time
recipient of the Medal of Honor. In the present context, think of it this way:
democracies should see a standing military as a necessary evil, and military
spending as a regressive tax on civilization – as President Dwight D. Eisenhower
famously did when he compared such spending to humanity being crucified on
a cross of iron.

Chanting constant hosannas to the troops and telling them they’re the
greatest ever – remember the outcry against Muhammad Ali when, with
significantly more cause, he boasted
that he was the greatest? – may make our military feel good, but
it won’t help them see their flaws, nor us as a nation see ours.

6. Loss of the respect of peers: Dissent is lonely. It’s
been more than a decade since my retirement and I still hesitate to write articles
like this. (It’s never fun getting hate mail from people who think
you’re un-American for daring to criticize any aspect of the military.)
Small wonder that critics choose to keep their own counsel while they’re
in the service.

7. Even when you leave the military, you never truly leave:
I haven’t been on a military base in years. I haven’t donned
a uniform since my retirement ceremony in 2005. Yet occasionally someone
will call me “colonel.” It’s always a reminder that
I’m still “in.” I may have left the military behind, but it
never left me behind. I can still snap to attention, render a
proper salute, recite my officer’s oath from memory.

In short, I’m not a former but a retired officer. My uniform may
be gathering dust in the basement, but I haven’t forgotten how it made
me feel when I wore it. I don’t think any of us who have served
ever do. That strong sense of belonging, that emotional bond, makes you
think twice before speaking out. Or at least that’s been my experience.
Even as I call for more honesty within our military, more bracing dissent, I
have to admit that I still feel a residual sense of hesitation. Make of
that what you will.

Bonus Reason: Troops are sometimes reluctant to speak out because
they doubt Americans will listen, or if they do, empathize and understand.
It’s one thing to vent your frustrations in private among friends on your
military base or at the local VFW hall among other veterans. It’s
quite another to talk to outsiders. War’s sacrifices and horrors
are especially difficult to convey and often traumatic to relive. Nevertheless,
as a country, we need to find ways to encourage veterans to speak out and we
also need to teach ourselves how to listen – truly listen – no matter
the harshness of what they describe or how disturbed what they actually have
to say may make us feel.

Encouraging Our Troops to Speak More Freely

Perpetual war is a far
greater threat to democracy in our country than ISIS, Russia, or any other
external threat you want to mention. To again quote former President Eisenhower,
who as supreme
commander of Allied forces in World War II had learned something of the
true nature of war, “Only Americans can hurt America.”

The military and the entire apparatus of the burgeoning national security state
should exist for a single purpose: to defend the country – that is, to
safeguard the Constitution and our rights, liberties, and freedoms. When
it does that, it’s doing its job, and deserves praise (but never worship).
When it doesn’t, it should be criticized, reformed, even rebuilt from
the ground up (and in more modest, less imperial fashion).

But this process is unlikely to begin as long as our leaders continue to wage
war without end and we the people continue to shout “Amen!” whenever
the Pentagon asks for more weapons and money for war. To heal our increasingly
fractured democracy, we need to empower liberty and nurture integrity within
the institution that Americans say they trust
the most: the U.S. military. Dissenting voices must be encouraged
and dissenting thoughts empowered in the service of rejecting the very idea
of war without end.

Some will doubtless claim that encouraging patriotic dissent within the military
can only weaken its combat effectiveness, endangering our national security.
But when, I wonder, did it become wise for a democracy to emulate Sparta?
And when is it ever possible to be perfectly secure?

William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and a TomDispatch
regular. He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian
schools and blogs at Bracing Views.